Does Nordic Semiconductor have the hardware we need to realize our project?

Question

Hi, 
 we’re a group of students at NTNU in Trondheim doing a project regarding bike and pedestrian registration. So far we want to make a solution based on iBeacon and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) . This is what we have outlined: 
 
 Placing BLE modules with GPRS, transceiveing data with iBeacon. 
 Participators have apps on their mobile units allowing to be waken and transceive information by iBeacon signals. 
 The modules and the mobile units can determine whether the mobile unit is a bike or a pedestrian. 
 All information sent from modules to servers are anonymized 
 Users get their own data from their apps and can use it for their own purposes. 
 
 Is this a solution that can be applicable with Nordic Semiconductor technology? 
 If so, can anyone give us a quick list of what we need. :) 
 Thanks in advance 
 Regards Per Kjellsen

Janek Mann · Accepted Answer

Sheesh, do your own homework won't you? ;) 
 Anyway, a few notes to get you started:
An iBeacon, strictly speaking, won't know that it has been observed by the phone. It is continuously advertising its UUID and Major/Minor IDs and the phone will observe these advertisements without needing to communicate back to the iBeacon. So iBeacon won't do what you want but regular BLE could (your app can stay in the background, be woken by iOS when your BLE module has been scanned, make connection to the BLE module and exchange its own identifier). 
 Integrating a BLE module with a GPRS module is a non-trivial exercise. Nordic's dev kits support BLE, obviously, but not GPRS so you'd have to look elsewhere for that. 
 Have you considered inverting your system? It's comparatively trivial for the app on the phone to make connection to your server and report the ids of the iBeacon it has ranged. This also would make it easier for the users to keep control over their own data, as you propose in point 5, and the BLE module side need never know (and can't leak) the id of the user. 
 Depending on your comfort level with embedded development, you could actually prototype the whole system using iOS devices (which can act as iBeacons, BLE device & host) before proceeding to an embedded implementation. The NRF51822 dev kits can act as iBeacons (see other posts on this forum) so may be a suitable option for that.